Bookbinding, sketching, and collecting street art

Posts Tagged ‘poetry’

Something a little different this week. Odd street boards have been popping up in the front gardens of houses in the NW10/W10 area of London. First one was seen in College Road, and the other in Kilburn Lane.

This is really going back in time, all the way to November 2008, but I recently went to look this up and realised I had never got around to blogging about it.

It started with a message I received through my Etsy shop:

I absolutely adore these books!! I was wondering if you do commissioned work. I am looking for someone to produce about 12-15 books (identical) that contain 10 of my grandmother’s poems. They can be small in size- I am just not certain if you printed Shakespeare’s word on the pages of your books or used old books and recycled them. I read that you like to make new uses out of old treasures. Let me know if this sounds like something you would be interested in. I would just need her poems printed on the pages and then you could bind them. I can tell you do great work- your craftsmenship is impecable. I am from New Jersey, USA. Let me know what you think.

Best Regards,

Lisa

We discussed the commission by e-mail and it ended up being an order for thirty little books, all printed with her Grandmother’s poetry. The books were A7 in size. The covers were smooth 120gsm, and the pages (of which there were 16 per book) were 160gsm cartridge paper.

She was really pleased with them, and it’s still one of the most enjoyable commissions I’ve taken on.

Something a little different for our street art this week. I sometimes take our dog to Emslie Horniman Pleasance, and it wasn’t until my second visit there that I spotted this very subtle piece in the Quiet Garden there.

Doesn’t look like much so far does it? Then you take a closer look at some of the bricks.

This is quite an old commission which I did back in November 2008, but I came across the photographs the other day and thought I might as well share it here. I really enjoyed working on it (and was incredibly flattered to be given such a job), there’s something very special about helping to create a family heirloom.

Thirty hard cover, coptic bound notebooks. The mountboard covers have been covered with white 120gsm paper, and the front covers have been injet printed with the title. The inside of the covers have been lined with black card.

Each notebook contains ten poems, written by the customer’s grandmother. The poems have been injet printed onto 120gsm cartridge paper. All the paper has been cut by hand.

The books have been bound with 100% linen thread, using the coptic method of binding which allows the book to be opened completely flat at any page.